Well, that was a much longer wait than anticipated. I got boondoggled by a whole lot of stuff, most notably starting a new job and painting our apartment. But you’re not here for excuses; you’re here to talk games. So let’s start by getting a game review out before it’s no longer timely.

Assassin’s Creed III (Ubisoft, 360, PS3, WiiU, PC) is an interesting case of one step forward, two steps back. The game has a lot of cool ideas at play and a lot of fun evolutions of the previous Assassin’s Creed concepts. Sadly, it’s dragged down by a lot of bugs and some inconsistent characterization.

You play as Native American assassin Connor who (as one message board poster so eloquently put it) “Forrest Gumps his way through the American Revolution.” Along the way you meet such luminaries as Ben Franklin, George Washington and Paul Revere.

My big knock against the Assassin’s Creed series has typically been the fact that every game is virtually identical to the one before it. Sure, the setting, characters and specific plots change and new game play mechanics are added, but other than a huge leap forward from Assassin’s Creed to Assassin’s Creed II, it’s all been incremental change.

ACIII does bring in some significant new ideas. For the most part, they work out better than some previous efforts to revolutionize the game play (i.e. Revelations’ “tower defense” mode). Naval combat is a fair bit of fun and I’ve heard many players say it’s their favourite part of the game. The addition of hunting (and related trading/crafting options) adds a lot to replay value, very similar to hunting in Red Dead Redemption. And the new system for free-running through trees is very well implemented. It’s also very necessary as colonial America lacked the massive urban centers that have been the trademark of previous AC games. Leaping from tree to tree to set up an airborne assassination is just delightful.

In theory, all of this all sounds like it could be the best Assassin’s Creed game yet, but that just isn’t the case. The end product of Assassin’s Creed III feels very rushed – the game could have used quite a bit more testing before release. There are bugs all over the place.

It could be as innocuous as a Redcoat soldier’s body flying into space after you kill him or as game-killing as the icon for your next mission disappearing from your map with no explanation whatsoever. Some concepts are explained in exhausting detail, complete with tutorials, others are given no explanation at all, leaving the player to attempt to figure it out on their own.

To be fair, these are issues that can be dealt with in future patches. What can’t be fixed that way are narrative and characterization issues. It’s difficult to explain without spoiling key elements of the plot, but Connor is very inconsistent. Sometimes he’s a stone cold killer willing and able to do whatever is necessary to achieve peace. Sometimes he’s naive to the point of idiocy. I found there were a lot of moments where I was taken out of the game because I didn’t understand Connor’s choices or his reactions to certain events.

If Ubisoft can deal with the mechanical issues in the game through patches, I’ll give Assassin’s Creed III a 7/10. If they can’t it gets a 6/10. The game play itself is still a lot of fun, but the game as a whole suffers from poor quality control and it tells a story that isn’t as gripping as it should be.

Next, I’d like to give a quick review for Disney’s video game film, Wreck-It Ralph.

The titular Ralph (John C. Reilly) is the villain in a classic arcade game, Fix-It Felix Jr. Feeling unappreciated in his role as the villain, Ralph leaves his game and travels to others (first-person shooter Hero’s Duty and Mario Kart clone Sugar Rush) to attempt to earn a hero’s medal and the respect of his co-workers – i.e. the NPCs of his game.

I came into the movie simply expecting your standard CGI romp with the added bonus of cameos from video game characters like Zangief, Q-Bert and Sonic the Hedgehog. As such, I was totally blindsided by the movie’s emotional core.

Ralph isn’t just searching for a medal and the acceptance of his peers. He’s denying himself and his “programming” – he wants to be a hero, not a villain. And, as his friendship with Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) develops, Ralph starts feeling more and more like a hero. This comes to a head in a heart-wrenching scene where, in order to do what’s best for his friend, he has to do what comes natural to him – to wreck something; to be the villain.

O’Reilly’s Ralph is a loveable oaf that you want to root for. Silverman’s Vanellope is an annoying brat, but we soon come to understand the forces that made her that way. The same can be said for Jane Lynch’s turn as the tough-as-nails commanding officer from Hero’s Duty. And Jack McBrayer’s “aw, shucks” good guy-isms bring Felix to life.

I do find myself wishing the game character cameos were more than just cameos. Showing Bowser and name-dropping Mario in the early parts of the movie, it’s a bit odd to then go to a Mario Kart clone instead of just using Mario Kart. Obviously, the plot would have probably been very, very different (Nintendo probably wouldn’t have wanted Disney to manipulate their characters in such a fashion). But I can’t help but wonder what could have been.

That all said, Wreck-It Ralph is a fun romp with some surprising depth, a lot of charm and a pantload of classic gaming references. I’ll give it an 8/10.

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